newts, lizards & flies
lizards on vacation
22 april - 5 may 2003

click to see my
lizardlogue
from

grand canyon national park
wupatki national monument
saguaro national forest
catalina state park, tucson

featuring the tree lizard, side-blotch lizard, zebra lizard, and greater and/or lesser earless lizard.

birds of the canyon
22 - 27 april 2003

click to see my
bird-blog
from

grand canyon national park
pueblo grande archeological park

featuring california condors, ravens, a western bluebird, black-necked stilts,and a squirrel.

setting free the mice
farewell marbles and ralphina
23 april 2003

click to see the
photo documentation
of the mouse liberation
red-shouldered hawk (Buteo lineatus)
keeping a keen watch over the parking lot
token creek county park, wisconsin
identified by david minoli
22 april 2003

massive evictions at rivendell
score as of 11/14/02: tin cats 17; mice 5; humans -2
we won't go into the results from the previous humans vs. mice contest
it was a complete rout --- guess who won?

<<< new roomate
One day during the mouse eviction proceedings a particularly small mouse got completely confused and began running aimlessly around my room. After making the acquaintance of one of the tin cats, Marbles completed the membershipping process and became a member of Rivendell. Actually, Marbles didn't have much say in the matter --- I decided that he/she/it was too small and too cute to be out on his/her/its own in the wild.

Marbles is a deer mouse.

former housemate >>>
being (forcibly) relocated to a new home in the park
november 1 2002

parting words:

"I'm free! I'm free!"

shortly therafter

"dang, it's cold out here"

My first confirmed newt sighting, and a naked newt at that. september 4 2002

Paul "Newt" Super says it's Notophthalmus viridescens viridescens,aka the Red-spotted Newt, eft stage (not sexually mature) and obviously embarrassed by that fact --- without its clothes on it is fleeing from the camera.

Jim Sethares, my father-in-law, offers the following newt (& salamander) facts:
salamander (sàl’e-màn´der), AMPHIBIAN (order Urodela) having a tail and small, weak limbs that can regenerate. Found in damp regions of the northern temperate zone, they are abundant in North America. Most are under 6 in. (15 cm) long, although the giant salamander of Japan may reach 5 ft (1.5 m). Usually nocturnal and feeding on small animals such as insects and worms, salamanders are mostly terrestrial as adults, although some are aquatic and a few arboreal. Newts are a large, widely distributed family of salamanders.
fly & the sky
padma samye ling, september 4 2002

may all beings be free from suffering
and the cause of suffering,
ignorance
lizards at large
3 sightings somewhere in utah
august 2, 2002

lizard numero uno, at right, is a whiptail lizard. Lizard lover Ammon Corl notes "I don't know about your species in particular, but the whiptails in my town in southern Arizona are all females...they have turned parthenogenetic."

lizard numero two-o was small with tiny iridescent blue spots, but not very photogenic as it turned out. Ammon thinks we may have encountered a side-blotched lizard, the primary object of Ammon's 3 month long LizardQuest.

camera loving lizard numero trio, shown below, is commonly known as a horny toad, but Ammon says it's "...actually a horned lizard. The genus name is Phrynosoma..."frinos" for short. They specialize on sitting near anthills and eating ants. Non-related lizards (such as ones in the US and in Australia) specialized on eating ants have independently evolved horns and a cryptic body coloration. My advisor thinks this is because they are exposed so often as they eat ants. Horny toads in the southwest are able to squirt blood out of their eyes when frightened...the reasons are still being investigated."
tadpoles

henry cowell state park
santa cruz ca
july 27 2002
rare sighting of an endangered pull top can in its native habitat